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Saints and Citizens is a bold new excavation of the history of Indigenous people in California in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, showing how the missions became sites of their authority, memory, and identity. Shining a forensic eye on colonial encounters in Chumash, Luiseño, and Yokuts territories, Lisbeth Haas depicts how native painters incorporated their cultural iconography in mission painting and how leaders harnessed new knowledge for control in other ways. Through her portrayal of highly varied societies, she explores the politics of Indigenous citizenship in the independent Mexican nation through events such as the Chumash War of 1824, native emancipation after 1826, and the political pursuit of Indigenous rights and land through 1848.

\"In September 2015, Junâipero Serra was canonized by Pope Francis in Washington DC against the protest of many Californian Native Americans who criticized his brutal treatment of their ancestors and destruction of their culture. Like most complex historical figures, Junâipero Serra has been interpreted in countless ways, often contextualized mainly in California. This book situates Serra in the context of the three major places that he lived, learned, and proselytized: Mallorca, Mexico, and Alta California. Scholars from all three countries contribute to a rare glimpse into the life of the saint by considering his use of music and art, his representation in popular culture; his education, ideology, and Franciscan influence; the plans and building of the missions; and his relation to native peoples.\"--Provided by publisher.

Bathed in desert light and shadow, rising up from the earth in improbable, faraway places, stand eight original Spanish missions on Mexico's Baja California peninsula. Built of stone by Roman Catholic priests and indigenous laborers in the eighteenth century, these stunning missions dominate the landscape around them.Baja California Missions: In the Footsteps of the Padresis a beautiful and informative book about the eight monumental Spanish colonial churches, buildings seldom seen by those familiar with the missions of California, Arizona, and Sonora, Mexico.With gorgeous photographs of the architecture and religious art, and supported by a concise history that outlines the peninsula's exploration and colonization by Roman Catholic priests,Baja California Missionsexcels as a book of photography and history. It promises adventure for readers at home, as well as for travelers ready to explore the churches in person.The eight Spanish colonial stone churches of Baja California endure as the only intact originals of 34 missions built by the padres during the peninsula's colonization. Due to structural renovations and restorations of the artwork undertaken over the last 30 years, the renowned mission churches have become sources of pride to the citizens of Baja California. Travelers are invited to visit at any time, especially during patron saint day celebrations.As a guide,Baja California Missionsis fully up to date, with directions for navigating Baja's paved highways and desert and mountain roads. The mission sites are pinpointed on a topographic roadmap of the peninsula. A church floor plan is provided to accompany a walk-through tour for each church interior. The lovely eighteenth-century oil paintings and wooden statues that grace the church altars are also identified and described.

California would be a different place today without the imprint of Spanish culture and the legacy of Indian civilization. The colonial Spanish missions that dot the coast and foothills between Sonoma and San Diego are relics of a past that transformed California's landscape and its people. In a spare and accessible style, Colonial Rosary looks at the complexity of California's Indian civilization and the social effects of missionary control. While oppressive institutions lasted in California for almost eighty years under the tight reins of royal Spain, the Catholic Church, and the government of Mexico, letters and government documents reveal the missionaries' genuine concern for the Indian communities they oversaw for their health, spiritual upbringing, and material needs. With its balanced attention to the variety of sources on the mission period, Colonial Rosary illuminates ongoing debates over the role of the Franciscan missions in the settlement of California. By sharing the missions' stories of tragedy and triumph, author Alison Lake underlines the importance of preserving these vestiges of California's prestatehood period. An illustrated tour of the missions as well as a sensitive record of their impact on California history and culture, Colonial Rosary brings the story of the Spanish missions of California alive.

This article investigates Indigenous persistence within Mission Santa Clara de Asís in central California through the analysis of animal food remains. The Spanish colonial mission system within Alta California had a profound social and ecological impact on Indigenous peoples, altering traditional subsistence strategies and foodway patterns. Past research has highlighted the continued use of precolonial foods within the Alta California mission system alongside the daily consumption of colonial-style beef stews. This article expands on that literature to consider how Indigenous and colonial residents differentially acquired ingredients and prepared daily meals within the Alta California colonial mission system. This assessment demonstrates a sharp divergence between Indigenous and colonists’ daily diet, manifested in the continued use of wild food resources by Indigenous people as well as the maintenance of precolonial culinary practices in the preparation of cattle meat for daily stews. These findings complicate our understanding of foodways within the Spanish mission system and expand our understanding of Indigenous autonomy within conditions of colonialism.

Recovering lost voices and exploring issues intimate and institutional, this sweeping examination of Spanish California illuminates Indian struggles against a confining colonial order and amidst harrowing depopulation.To capture the enormous challenges Indians confronted, Steven W.

Background Missions were established in California in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to convert Native Americans to Christianity and enculturate them into a class of laborers for Californios (Spanish/Mexican settler). The concentration of large numbers of Native Americans at the Missions, along with the introduction of European diseases, led to serious disease problems. Medicinal supplies brought to California by the missionaries were limited in quantity. This situation resulted in an opportunity for the sharing of knowledge of medicinal plants between the Native Americans and the Mission priests. The purpose of this study is to examine the degree to which such sharing of knowledge took place and to understand factors that may have influenced the sharing of medicinal knowledge. The study also examines the sharing of medicinal knowledge between the Native Americans and the Californios following the demise of the California Missions. Methods Two methods were employed in the study: (1) a comparison of lists of medicinal plants used by various groups (e.g., Native American, Mission priests, Californios) prior to, during, and after the Mission period and (2) a close reading of diaries, reports, and books written by first-hand observers and modern authorities to find accounts of and identify factors influencing the exchange of medicinal information. Results A comparison of the lists of medicinal plants use by various groups indicated that only a small percentage of medicinal plants were shared by two or more groups. For example, none of the 265 taxa of species used by the Native Americans in pre-Mission times were imported into Spain for medicinal use and only 16 taxa were reported to have been used at the Missions. A larger sharing of information of medicinal plants took place in the post-Mission period when Native Americans were dispersed from the Missions and worked as laborers on the ranches of the Californios. Conclusions Sharing of information concerning medicinal plants did occur during the Mission period, but the number of documented species was limited. A number of possible factors discouraged this exchange. These include (1) imbalance of power between the priests and the Native Americans, (2) suppression of indigenous knowledge and medical practices by the Mission priests, (3) language barriers, (4) reduction of availability of medicinal herbs around the Mission due to introduced agricultural practices, (5) desire to protect knowledge of medicinal herbs by Native American shaman, (6) administrative structure at the Missions which left little time for direct interaction between the priests and individual Native Americans, (7) loss of knowledge of herbal medicine by the Native Americans over time at the Missions, and (8) limited transportation opportunities for reciprocal the shipment of medicinal plants between California and Spain. Three possible factors were identified that contributed to a greater sharing of information between the Native Americans and the Californios in the post-Mission period. These were (1) more one-to-one interactions between the Californios and the Native Americans, (2) many of the Californios were mestizos whose mothers or grandmothers were Native Americans, and (3) lack of pressure on the part of the Californios to suppress Native American beliefs and medicinal practices.

The article assesses the recent canonization of Junípero Serra, Spanish Franciscan missionary and founder of the California mission system. I begin by introducing the priest and outlining the genesis of his assignment. I then discuss the model of missions’ operation and problematize their results. The rise of Serra’s legend is situated within the historical context of California’s “fantasy heritage”. I later outline the chief arguments and metaphors mobilized by the Church in support of the new saint. In the central part of the essay, I address and critically examine the ramifications of a document Serra authored and which the Church took as the priest’s passport to sainthood. I argue that the document inaugurated the epistemic and social divides in California and, marking the Indian as (Agamben), paved the way to the Indigenous genocide in the mission and American eras. Following this, I offer a semiological (after Barthes and Lakoff) interpretation of the canonization as a modern myth, argue that metaphors invoked in support of the priest inverted the historical role played by Serra and, finally, ponder the moral ramifications of this canonization.

Conventional wisdom has it that, in the eighteenth century, California’s mission Indians labored without recompense to support the Spanish military and other costs of imperial administration. This article challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that it was not until the Spanish empire unraveled in the nineteenth century that Indians labored at missions with little compensation. Spain stopped subsidizing California in 1810, at which point the systematic non-payment of Christian Indians for goods supplied to the California military was implemented as an emergency measure. In 1825, independent Mexico finally sent a new governor to California, but military payroll was never reinstated in its entirety. Not surprisingly, most accounts of military confrontation between California Indians and combined mission/military forces date from the 1810 to 1824 period. By investigating an underutilized source—account books of exports and imports for four missions—the article explores two issues: first, the processes of cooptation inside missions up to 1809, and secondly, the way that Spain’s cessation of financing in 1810 affected the relationship with Indians.